Monday, February 28, 2011

Recipe of the Week - Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

This recipe comes to you courtesy of my newest cookbook, Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.  This is an awesome recipe and I think you and your family will enjoy the lightness of this cupcake and of course everything is better with chocolate chips!  You can frost these but I chose not too and I don't regret it.  Martha pairs them with a dark chocolate frosting.  But I have to say, they taste wonderful with out frosting.  Like a fluffy chocolate chip cookie. 

Ingredients:

3 1/4 cups plus 1 T sifted cake flour (not self-rising)
4 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 T pure vanilla extract
1 cup plus 2 T milk
1/2 cup plus 6 T (1 3/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 3/4 cups sugar
5 large egg whites, room temperature
2 cups (12 oz) semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line standard muffin tins with paper liners.  Whisk together 3 1/4 cups cake flour, the baking powder, and salt.  It does say to sift your cake flour, but I did not.  I guess it's up to you.  I will try it next time to see if I like it better.
Stir the vanilla into the milk to combine.

With an electric mixer on med-high speed, 
cream butter until smooth.  Adding the sugar
in a steady stream, beat until pale and fluffy. 

Reduce speed to low.  Add flour mixture in three batches, 
alternating with two additions of milk mixture, 
and beating until just combined after each.

In another bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, 
whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form (do not overmix).

Fold one-third of the egg whites into the batter to lighten.  
Gently fold in remaining whites until just combined. 

Toss chocolate chips with remaining tablespoon of cake flour.  
This keeps your chocolate chips from sinking to the bottom.

Gently fold the chips into the batter.

Divide batter evenly among lined cups, 
filling each three-quarters full.  
It filled 2 regular sized muffin tins and...

a 24 count mini muffin tin  too!

Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester 
inserted in centers comes out clean and the tops are 
springy to the touch, about 22 minutes.  Transfer tins 
to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes.

 Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature, 
or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.



Sumo Sweet Stuff

The Girl Creative









Funky Junk's Saturday Nite Special

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Fabric Giveaway at Happiest When Crafting

There is a giveaway for some cute fabric going on at Happiest When Crafting!

I love fabric and I would love some FREE fabric!

Head on over and enter.  It's her first giveaway so show her some love!

Bouncing Bears

On Wednesdays, Caleb and Simon are taking a class at the rec. center called Bouncing Bears.  It is an hour of kids running around playing in a bouncy house, blow up slide and with all kinds of balls.  At the end there is some parachute time with bubbles and dancing.  The boys are loving it and it wears them out for the rest of the day!  Their little faces are all red and sweaty by the end of the hour but they ask to go back every day.









Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Squirrel Underpants

Thanks to my good friend, Amanda, I got a good laugh when I got the mail on Friday.  I thought I would share it with you all.  You aren't imagining things...those are indeed squirrel-sized underpants!

Here is the back view!

Here is a close up so you can actually read what it says.  
I love that, "naturally occurring indecent exposures"!  Thanks for the chuckle Amanda!

If you want to get your squirrels some underpants you can go to squirrelunderpants.com and order some!

Monday, February 21, 2011

Recipe of the Week - Mall Pretzels

This was the first time for us to make our own pretzels and I found this recipe on allrecipes.comand it was really easy to follow. They turned out very tasty too.  Turns out none of us knew how to twist a pretzel so Troy had to look up a tutorial on how to do that. 

You can go HEREto learn how to twist a pretzel properly.  It's amazing how you can be taught how to do almost anything from the internet!

Ingredients

1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/8 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C) 
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup bread flour
2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
2 tablespoons baking soda
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons coarse kosher salt

In a large mixing bowl, dissolve the yeast, 
brown sugar and salt in 1 1/2 cups warm water. 

Stir in flour.

Knead dough on a floured surface 
until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes.

 Place in a greased bowl, and turn to coat the surface.  
I just used Pam to spray the bowl.

Cover, and let rise for one hour. 

 Combine 2 cups warm water and 
baking soda in an 8 inch square pan. 

 After dough has risen...

cut into 12 pieces.

Roll each piece into a 3 foot rope, pencil thin or thinner. 

Twist into a pretzel shape.  This was me messing around 
with the dough before we looked up the tutorial. 

Dip into the baking soda solution.

 Place on parchment covered cookie sheets, 
and let rise 15 to 20 minutes. 

 Bake at 450 degrees F (230 degrees C) for 
8 to 10 minutes, or until golden brown.

 Brush with melted butter, and sprinkle with coarse salt, 
garlic salt or cinnamon sugar.  We used cinnamon sugar this time.

  Josh
 
Caleb

 Simon

The Girl Creative

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Sick Leave

I've been sick.  Lucky for me I have an awesome husband who has been able to help when he is home from work.  I have been functioning in "survival" mode and now my pile of projects has grown and the house is less than clean.  I hate being sick for the very reason that it stresses me out to see everything all backed up.  So I'll be playing catch up for the next week and that may mean that you won't hear from me for a little while.  Of course, several of my projects are sewing projects, so you may see those on here. 

Clean laundry...waiting to be folded.

Dirty laundry...waiting to be cleaned.

Projects waiting for the kid's nap/bed times.

 The saddest thing is that I think my baby may be getting my cold.  Poor Simon.

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